NEW YORK – Bruker on Tuesday reported that its fourth quarter revenues were up 5 percent year over year.
For the three months ended Dec. 31, the company reported revenues of $627.5 million, up from $599.9 million in Q4 2019, and beating the consensus Wall Street estimate of $602.0 million.
Organic revenue growth during the quarter was down a fraction of a percent, as acquisitions added a fraction of a percent while foreign currency translation had a positive effect of 5 percent.
The company's Bruker Scientific Instruments (BSI) segment, which houses its life science mass spec business, reported revenues of $574.7 million during the quarter, up 5 percent from $546.6 million in Q4 2019. Revenues from the Bruker Energy & Supercon Technologies (BEST) segment were $54.7 million, down 5 percent from $57.7 million the year before.
During a conference call following release of the earnings results, Bruker President, Chairman, and CEO Frank Laukien said the company continued to see sequential improvement in revenues as its business recovered from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
He noted that the company's proteomics, infectious disease diagnostics, ultra-high field NMR, and biopharma markets had shown strong performance throughout the year and added that microbiology, molecular diagnostics, and life sciences mass spectrometry posted double-digit revenue growth during 2020.
Bruker CFO Gerald Herman said Bruker's microbiology and mass spectrometry businesses posted greater than 20 percent growth, driven by demand for infectious disease testing consumables and uptake of the company's timsTOF mass spec instrument for proteomics.
Laukien said that Bruker has now placed more than 250 timsTOF mass specs globally and that the platform showed strong revenue growth in 2020 and ended the year with strong order growth.
He noted that over the course of the year Bruker had upped its investments in three areas it had identified as having "substantial long-term growth potential" — proteomics, spatial and single-cell biology, and molecular viral diagnostics.
Bruker's Q4 net income was $68.9 million, or $.45 per share, up from $68.6 million, or $.44 per share in Q4 2019. On an adjusted basis, Q4 EPS was $.58, above the Wall Street estimate of $.56.
Bruker's Q4 R&D costs rose 22 percent to $57.1 million from $46.7 million the year before, while its SG&A expenses were essentially flat at $130.4 million, compared to $130.3 million a year ago.
For full-year 2020. Bruker reported revenues of $1.99 billion, down 4 percent from $2.07 billion in 2019 but above the Wall Street estimate of $1.96 billion.
Organic revenue was down 6 percent year over year, with acquisitions adding less than one percent and favorable currency translation adding 1 percent.
The BSI segment reported full-year 2020 revenues of $1.81 billion, down 4 percent from $1.88 billion in 2019. Revenues from the BEST segment were $189.5 million, down 10 percent from $209.9 million the year before.
For full-year 2020, Bruker reported a profit of $157.8 million, or $1.02 per share, down from $197.2 million, or $1.26 per share in 2019. On an adjusted basis, full-year 2020 EPS was $1.35, compared to $1.57 in 2019 and beating the Wall Street estimate of $1.33.
Full-year 2020 R&D costs were up 5 percent to $198.0 million from $187.7 million in 2019. SG&A expenses were down 6 percent in 2020 to $468.6 million from $500.2 million the year before.
Bruker said it expects between 11 percent and 13 percent year-over-year revenue growth in 2021, including between 7 percent and 9 percent organic revenue growth and a favorable currency effect of around 4 percent. It said it expects adjusted full-year 2021 EPS of between $1.72 and $1.77.
In Tuesday morning trading on Nasdaq, Bruker stock was up 4 percent to $62.94.